Crashland (6 page)

“Through here,” said Forest.

They turned left into an atrium that afforded them a glimpse of gray skies outside and passed from there into a series of changing rooms, complete with uniform fabbers down one wall. The Air returned, filling Clair's infield with a new flood of notifications, and five fabbers started whirring industriously.

“Shower and change,” said Sargent, indicating three cubicles in a row. “Undersuits and light body armor will be outside the curtains when you're done.”

Armor sounded like a step in the right direction.

“Uh, I'm not volunteering to defend your little fort,” said Devin, trying and failing to brush the dried blood off his Nehru jacket. “I'm an observer only.”

“You can observe all you like,” said Forest. “That was the agreement.”

“Well, we're not going to just sit here while someone attacks us,” said Jesse.

Clair agreed. “Otherwise, you might as well send us home.”

“That would never be authorized,” said Forest. “Net One is strictly limited to priority transits. You are no longer a priority now that we are out of danger.”

“You can hear that siren, can't you?” said Jesse, pointing at the ceiling. “I'm not imagining it?”

“No one's going anywhere,” said Sargent, raising her hands for calm. “Including the dupes, unfortunately. In order to stop them we need to understand them, and in order to understand them we need data. We have drones, but they can't watch everywhere at once. That's where you guys come in. Crystal City is short of monitors, thanks to the d-mat shutdown and lags in the Air, and we need all the eyes we can get. If we can track the dupes, we can pin them down, maybe even capture another one of them, see if we can get it to talk. Are you in?”

“Observation I can do,” said Devin.

“When do we start?” Clair said. The sooner she got the immediate problem of the dupes off her back, the sooner she could get back to working on the rest.

“Showers first,” said Sargent, pointing firmly at the cubicles. “Don't think we're doing this just to make you smell nice. Another common terror tactic is combining chemical or biological agents with light shrapnel, to ensure the agent gets in. I'm talking about poisoned blood and bone darts. Scrub yourself completely clean and report any odd reactions around puncture wounds. We'll be doing the same, so don't think you're being singled out.”

Clair looked with new concern at the red line stretching down Sargent's face from where the sliver of bone had stuck into her. Standing there arguing was giving those “agents” a chance to spread through the peacekeeper's body.

“All right.” Clair stepped into the cubicle and tugged the curtain closed behind her. She would do as she was told as long as in return she wasn't going to be brushed off like some inconvenient kid. She had seen and done too much to be pushed to the sidelines, by the dupes or by anyone else.

SHE TUGGED OFF
the jumpsuit and threw it into one corner of the stall. Then she turned on the shower, producing a powerful stream of hot water. There was soap, shampoo, and conditioner, even a pick for her hair. She used the soap thoroughly, checking every part of her for cuts or puncture wounds that might have come from the exploding dupe. Her elbow was loosening up under the patch the medic had given her, and her throat hadn't even bruised. She felt surprisingly okay, physically, considering she had killed herself and watched her own dupe die in the last few hours.

As she applied conditioner and worked steadfastly through the numerous tangles in her hair, she checked her infield for a message from Q. Still nothing. Using the same address, she bumped Q again, while she had the chance.

“I feel awful about what I did, and I'm really sorry. Can you see why I had to do it? Wallace would've won if I hadn't. Maybe more people died this way—I don't know. But it's better, isn't it, to fix something than to leave it broken?”

She sent the bump, too late realizing that she had inadvertently reiterated the argument behind Improvement.
You can be Improved
. Except having a big nose wasn't the same thing as being broken, not by a long shot. Or living in a broken world.

Clair's mother, Allison, was in a PK station in Windham, their hometown. She answered practically the nanosecond Clair requested a chat.

“You're safe! Thank everyone and everything. Where are you? When are you coming home?”

Clair explained as best she could, hoping the shower would cover the sound of the siren. It was difficult to admit how little she knew about current events without sounding completely irresponsible. Allison wanted to know if her plan to enlist VIA had worked and if everything was going to be all right now, but what could Clair say?

For the moment she tried to focus on the small and personal, rather than the whole world.

“Where's Oz? Is he with you?”

Allison shook her head. “He went back to the apartment to get some rest. The PKs have been deputizing volunteers in the old town hall. Everyone's doing their best to band together, but no one really knows anyone else. He's worried about riots if this goes on much longer.”

“Riots in Windham?” Clair couldn't imagine it. Windham barely qualified as anywhere. “Tell him to be careful, Mom.”

“I have. He might be more inclined to if it comes from you. He's worried about you too.”

“I'm sorry.” Clair hesitated, caught on the tipping point of saying nothing and saying everything. “I love you, Mom.”

“And I love you, dearest child of mine. Please be safe.”

“I'm doing my best.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise. And, hey, ditto.”

“Ditto.” Clair could hear the smile in her mother's voice, but it was on the surface only. Underneath was all worry.

Devin bumped her as soon as she closed the chat. “Don't be under any illusions that the PKs are acting out of the goodness of their hearts. They want something from you. That's why you're here.”

“Are you spying on me?” she sent back.

“Perfectly legally. I saw you call your mother. I guessed what you would talk about. It wasn't hard.”

Clair checked the list of people following her profile, and sure enough, there he was, along with LM Kingdon and all the others. He couldn't see the content of private conversations at his level of privilege, but he was probably telling the truth about the rest.

She thought briefly again about taking up the lawmaker's offer, but decided that she should only get legal advice once she actually had something concrete to talk about on the matter of reactivation. No use tipping her hand too early, in case PK Forest was paying attention.

Applying a second layer of conditioner to her hair and tying it up in a temporary knot, she ignored the embarrassment of talking in the shower to a boy she hardly knew and opened a chat.

“So what if the PKs want something from me?” she said. “So do you.”

“At least I'm being honest about it.”

“How do you know they haven't been?”

“Because I know them. Prove me wrong.”

She had to admit that he wasn't. But she didn't see the harm in what he was suggesting. She wasn't being entirely honest with the PKs, either. They made her feel safer, but if they stood between her and what she needed to do, she would escape without a moment's hesitation and get on with it her way.

“They're after the same thing as you, aren't they?” she went on. “It's all about finding Q, even though they're pretending it isn't. That's what Wallace wanted. That's what you want.”

“I don't
want
her,” he said. “I want to know what she
is
, with a view to containing her. And I know you don't want to hear that, but . . . Look, do you know why we don't have smart AIs running the world?”

“Sure, Turner Goldsmith told me. Because—”

“Because AIs are either too big and spread too thin or too small to be good at more than one thing. Yes? Well, your friend in WHOLE was lying. Real AIs can be anything they want, which is why they're so dangerous. They're not impossible at all. We don't have them because they're
banned
.”

Clair mulled this over for a moment.

“Q isn't dangerous,” she said. “She's just a kid . . . a kid version of an AI, whatever that's called. She helped me, and she helped everyone harmed by Improvement.”

“Sure, but how did she do it? By hacking into systems that were supposed to be utterly secure and destroying the oversight capacity of the entire VIA network. She almost wiped VIA HQ right off the surface of the Earth just to get you back. Imagine what she could do when she grows up! Creating something like her and losing control of it was Wallace's real crime, Clair. You have to understand the gravity of the situation.”

“Well, she's not talking to me any longer, so if you think I'm going to betray her or talk her into turning herself in, you can forget it. I couldn't do it even if I wanted to.”

“We'll see,” he said. “She's not talking to us, either, and we've tried hard to get her attention. Maybe you can help us find her, wherever she's gone to ground.”

“Is that what you think she's done?”

“Either that or she's done us all a favor and erased herself for good.”

Clair gasped. Q had followed her lead on more than one occasion. What if she had done so in the worst possible way?

Distantly, she heard the sound of Devin's shower clicking off two cubicles along. The chat stayed open.

“What was that you said earlier?” he asked. “You could hear something, back in the booth?”

“Yeah, did you hear it too? Like a private chat bleeding into my feed. Whispering.”

“No, nothing like that,” he said. “You sure you didn't get any of that poisoned shrapnel in you?”

“Whether I did or not, Devin, I was hearing things before that happened.”

“Ah. Well, then it's just ordinary everyday hallucinations. Watch out for those. Reality can be such a letdown when it kicks back in.”

She ended the chat, not liking being made fun of and figuring it was time she got out of the shower too.

She finished rinsing out the conditioner, wrapped her hair in a towel and reached through the curtain for her new clothes. They were the perfect size, made to the measurements in her profile, and consisted of a sleek black undersuit that looked whisper-thin but was supportive in all the right places, plus a set of shoes, pants, and a hooded top made of blue and white segments that slipped neatly over each other. It was only marginally bulkier than jeans and a sweatshirt, and felt considerably lighter.

There was a mirror. When she checked herself out, she looked like a young peacekeeper, apart from her hair, which, released from the towel, was already bushing up as it always did. If they'd given her a helmet, she might have worn it just to keep the frizz under control.

She remembered what Jesse had said about her having potential in this line of work. The figure in the mirror was a glimpse of her possible future, if she wanted it. A zit on her chin emphasized that this future should have been much further away than it seemed right now.

Her stomach was full of butterflies. There were dupes nearby and they were trying to get to her. As she stepped out of the stall, she bumped her stepfather. Oz was asleep, but her message would be there for him later.

FOREST AND SARGENT
showed them how to use the hoods of their uniforms. They were soft and pliable when inactive, but turned rigid and skull hugging at a simple command. The PKs wore similar outfits but with pouches and packs—the complete kit, Clair assumed, unlike their stripped-down versions.

“We should give our squad a name,” said Devin. “Clair's Bears, perhaps.”

Clair winced, thinking of Zep's nickname for her: Clair-bear.

“This isn't a game,” said Jesse. He was standing with his wet hair slicked back, looking stern and nervous at the same time. Devin shrugged.

Forest's gaze flicked across each of them, as though testing them.

“All right,” he said. “This way.”

The Crystal City barracks network connected with her lenses as she walked through its echoing gray corridors and stairwells, offering menus and links to Forest and Sargent and a number of other PKs, several of whom appeared to be actively monitoring drones already. She had access to more than two dozen audiovisual feeds showing the barracks and its surroundings. Some had detailed commentaries. The rest were blank. She guessed that was where she and the others came in. A couple of hours of scoping out the dupes, she hoped, and she would be free to get back to finding Q.

“Well, so far Washington is a huge disappointment,” said Jesse with a half smile. “Where are the monuments? The museums? The trees?”

Clair realized only then that, unless his father had physically taken him cross-country from the West Coast and back again, Jesse would never have been to the former U.S. capital before. She had visited twice on school trips and once with her family, all via d-mat. It had been as close to her as any other place in the world, before the crash.

“Overrated,” she said, matching his attempt at lightheartedness with one of her own. “And we're a ways off from the interesting bits.”

She tried not to think about all the school kids and tourists out there, stuck in Washington until d-mat could get them home.

“Through here.”

Forest waved them into a darkened suite containing six sleek reclining chairs arranged in a circle, feet-inward.

“There's a fabber if you're hungry or thirsty,” Sargent said. “Order what you want and I'll bring it to you when it's ready.”

Clair chose the chair opposite the door. As she sank back into the black leather, she opened the fabber menu via the barracks network. It wasn't as if she was hungry—the image of her exploded dupe was still horribly fresh in her mind—but she couldn't remember the last time she had eaten. Thinking of what her mother would say, she ordered coffee, chocolate, and beef jerky, plus a hair band to bring her thick curls into line.